


untitled (yellow on red)

by skateboardsound



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Sexual Tension, set during baby don't stop mv filming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:21:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26097046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skateboardsound/pseuds/skateboardsound
Summary: sometimes you don't need to actually say the words.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Comments: 8
Kudos: 134





	untitled (yellow on red)

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this as a writing practice today! i’ve been working on a longer taeten for a while so i was trying to get a feel for tone and characterization. yes i know im writing taeten in 2020….there are dozens of us literally dozens………..
> 
> takes place during the baby don’t stop mv filming.

ten’s first thought when they’d arrived at the filming location had been that the exterior of the building was rather dull, but after some uncounted minutes of wandering the interior surprised him with how beautiful it was. within the nondescript outside lay ornate wood-paneled ceilings and extravagant light fixtures, mirrored hallways and small rooms just old enough and dust-coated to be interesting. 

they’re far enough away from the hustle and bustle of the set that the theater is eerily quiet, and had he been alone ten may have been more reluctant to tread around the many dark gray corners in the old building. in the end his curiosity outweighed his fear, but he makes sure to keep taeyong’s bright red hair in his peripherals anyway.

despite the eeriness it’s almost peaceful. the neat stacks of foreign books and quiet atmosphere takes his mind off how tired and hungry and cold he is, how anxious he is about forgetting his korean, how badly he wants some food or even a drink to take the edge off.

taeyong appears equally interested in exploring with the way he’s staring wide-eyed at the rooms in childlike wonder. that expression always makes his eyes look eerily large, but especially now with his face as thin as ten’s ever seen it. they probably don’t have much time before the set is ready for filming but taeyong’s lagging behind, staring at something on the far wall with that same look of rapt fascination.

ten walks to him and leans over from behind to tuck his chin on taeyong’s shoulder. the brittle ends of his hair tickle ten’s cheek.

“what’s got your attention?” he asks.

the painting in front of taeyong is colorful but simplistic, nothing that had caught ten’s eye much his first time around the hall: two bright smudges of yellow over a muted brick-red background. it’s one of the only pops of color in the room, sticking out the same way taeyong’s red hair had outside against the sea of brutalist gray buildings.

“it’s beautiful, right?”

“it’s very…modern,” he says delicately.

taeyong laughs. “you don’t like it?”

“it’s fine, i guess. modern art doesn’t do much for me. it’s a bit too simple, you know? i’m more into impressionism or surrealism. like, i’m sure there’s a deeper meaning behind this but i can’t be fucked to figure it out.”

“you’re overthinking it. here, stand closer. it’s big for a reason.”

ten unhooks his chin and lets taeyong guide him in front of the painting with a loose grip on his hips until it fills his entire field of vision, a violent onslaught of warm reds and yellows. as he looks closer he sees details he’d missed earlier. of the two yellow smudges, the top one is a more sickly green color, like a healing bruise. the shapes are loosely colored and the yellow bleeds into the red background messily like a child’s finger-painting. despite what taeyong had said, there’s nothing beautiful about it.

“what should i be seeing?” he wonders out loud.

“well,” taeyong starts. “all art is ultimately about colors and feeling, right? this one is too but in a more simplistic way. don’t try so hard to find a meaning, it’s more about what emotions it draws from you.” taeyong’s fingers dance at the waistband of his jeans, never having left his hips, close to but never straying above the cut of denim. “how do you feel?”

“…uncomfortable.”

taeyong’s hands drop from his hips but ten reaches back and pulls them there again. this time around it feels more intimate, more purposeful, with his own hands holding taeyong’s grip in place, tighter now as if he knows how desperately ten wants to feel him there.

“not that,” ten says gently. “the painting.”

“why?”

“well, it’s very bright. and the yellow is too green, it looks out of place against the red.”

“right?” taeyong sounds excited and it makes ten like the painting a little more, despite how ugly he finds it. “that’s what’s so interesting about it. there’s not much to it but you’re able to feel something from the colors alone. isn’t it cool how different colors can make us feel all these emotions? like how blue feels sad?”

ten nods. “like...emotional associations? how green makes you think of jealousy and greed?”

“exactly. it’s amazing to think that so many people can feel the same thing from just colors and shapes, but also that the same colors and shapes could make people feel such different things.”

taeyong’s voice trails off near the end and his fingers begin rubbing small circles on ten’s skin.

“what does yellow make you think of?” he prompts.

ten considers it. “happiness. energy and the sun. hope.”

“and what about red?”

“that one’s more open, right? because it could be all these negative things, like anger or blood, but it could also be all these good things, like love or passion or lust.”

ten becomes aware of the hands at his hips again, and the stray thought crosses his mind that if taeyong’s fingers inched up just a bit, with how tightly he was gripping, his frayed fingernails would press sharp crescent marks into the skin of his hip bones. abruptly, the jolt of taeyong’s phone vibrating shocks them both, the hands finally falling from ten’s hips for good.

“back to work,” taeyong says, an awkward half-smile on his lips that ten is entirely familiar with. during the months they’d started this song and dance, so to speak, it has been a constant.

after they leave, walking a careful distance apart back to the set, the image of the red and yellow painting, and the warmth at his hips, are both pressed into his memory.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


taeyong emerges from the shower with a cloud of steam in his wake. ten’s eyes are drawn first to the odd way his fried hair is sticking up at all angles and then to his blotchy red abdomen, a stark contrast against the bleached white towel around his hips.

“you didn’t use up all the hot water, did you?” he accuses.

the kiev cold had wedged itself in his bones and despite the layers of sweatshirts and warm stew from dinner, he needed a hot shower to shake it completely.

taeyong huffs, rolling his eyes as he slips past ten towards the bed. “no, it’s all yours.”

ten grabs his bag of toiletries, eyeing him in playful suspicion. “if you’re lying to me you’ll be dealt with.”

“i’m not afraid of you,” taeyong says, laughing, and sticks his tongue out.

“well, you should be. you’re not winning that fight if it comes down to it.” to prove the point he peels his shirt off and chucks it at taeyong, slipping into the cloud of warm steam in the bathroom before he can retaliate. taeyong’s indignant yelp is covered by the sound of the door closing behind him.

the steam has rendered the mirror unusable with fog, which is a relief because ten doesn’t want to confront the mess of poorly-removed makeup that’s surely still smeared around his eyes. he slips off the rest of his clothes in a pile on the floor and steps into the shower, still warm when he turns it on just as taeyong promised.

under the stream of hot water the cold slowly disappears from his core. the water is harsh, especially against his hands which had cracked earlier from the cold, shallow splits like fractured glass running across his skin. the stylists had made him promise to use lotion, but it made his fingers freeze up so he’d been avoiding it. they’d probably lecture him again tomorrow because the hot water couldn’t be doing anything but drying them out more, not that he had the mind to care at the moment. the only thing that mattered was the thoughtless ecstasy of warmth.

ten grabs the body wash—taeyong’s, because he’d forgotten to pack his own and the hotel’s smelled too artificial—and lathers it slowly in his hands before rubbing it over the stiff muscles of his neck, down to shoulders and across his chest, extra sensitive from all the temperature changes. he pauses once his hands rub past his stomach to rest on his hips, an echo of the hold taeyong had on him earlier that day.

the memory was hard to shake off, not only because of the rare public display of intimacy but because taeyong’s words always had a way of sticking with him. after their conversation it was like every bit of color stood out that much more—the bright pink eyeshadow in his stylist’s makeup palette, jaehyun’s plaid shirt at dinner, the fading sunset through the van’s smudged window. 

it was staring at that sunset with his head resting against the window that brought on the realization that at some point he’d started keeping track of time by hair colors, and clothes he’d worn, and set pieces. color is, as taeyong had pointed out, at the root of everything.

and maybe that was true of people too.

even before taeyong dyed his hair, ten thinks, fingers still at his hips, he had thought of him as ‘red’. he’s not sure when he’d started thinking that way. maybe it began before they’d even been close, the first time he’d seen him flush from close contact, or saw the blotchy red above his towel after a bath, or the rose-colored flush that creeps up his neck while drinking and his cheeks when he rubs off his foundation too roughly.

or maybe it happened one night after a midnight practice when taeyong had peeled an apple for him.

“it tastes better this way,” he’d insisted. “maybe it’s the skin you don’t like.”

ten had watched in rapt fascination as the red slivers fell down onto the plate below in strips with each deft flick of taeyong’s wrist, hypnotized by the way the silver of the knife glistened even in the lowlights of the kitchen, blade so close to taeyong’s thumb that he couldn’t look away for fear that the bare apple might become red again. between taeyong’s fingers the apple slice tasted sweet. he’d made sure to catch the tips of taeyong’s fingers between his teeth on the next bite, and then the rest of the apple remained forgotten, the taste of it quickly overwritten by something better.

ten should probably feel bad about it, or at least apologetic, but he likes how delicate taeyong is in that way. he likes that when he leads him by the wrist to the practice room his fingers leave a ring there from holding him just on the other side of too-tight. is it possession? a desire to claim ownership? surely it’s something ugly and selfish, or he wouldn’t feel that rush of guilty satisfaction thinking about it.

“you’re red,” ten announces when he emerges from the bathroom. it catches taeyong off guard, clearly, because his phone slides out from his hands and drops down onto his chest.

“ow. what?” taeyong sets his phone to the side and eyes his chest, still pink from his shower. “it’s not  _ that  _ bad. you know my skin is just really sensitive.”

“i mean—not  _ literally.  _ you know earlier? when we were talking about colors before the shoot?” taeyong nods slowly. “i was thinking about it while i was showering and i decided that you’re red to me.”

still, taeyong stares dumbly. “like, my aura?”

ten shrugs. he walks the rest of the way into the room and settles on the end of the bed by taeyong’s feet, aware of how his towel slides up his thighs as he does so and doing nothing to adjust it. “if you want to think of it that way.”

taeyong grins, propping himself up onto his skinny arms to rest back against his elbows. “is it because of my hair?”

ten rolls his eyes. “no. are you fishing for an explanation?”

“you’re the one who brought it up. doesn’t that mean you want to talk about it? or am i supposed to draw my own conclusions?”

“beg for it and i’ll tell you,” ten jokes.

“tell me? pretty please?” he even bats his eyelashes knowing ten won’t be able to resist.

“well,” ten starts, “you’re passionate. i don’t know anybody who wants more or works harder than you.”

taeyong, always weak to praise, flushes predictably at his words, from his cheeks down to his already-red chest. “is that it?”

“should i go on?”

it takes a moment for taeyong to nod, as though he wasn’t sure whether he could handle more or not.

“also,” ten continues. “it’s because you’re a warm person. i don’t mean that literally, obviously, but when you were holding my hips earlier all i could think about is how i never wanted you to let go. and—” ten crawls forward on the bed then. he places a hand on taeyong’s bare chest and waits for a reaction. he gets nothing except a clear intake of breath and so, slowly, he drags his nails down taeyong’s chest and watches the red zig-zags flare up on taeyong’s sensitive skin under his fingers, over the bumpy planes of lean muscle and the skin between his ribs. taeyong’s chest rises to meet his touch even as his nails dip lower, tracing his stomach with a cruel pressure. ten watches his pale skin flare up pink under his deliberate brushstrokes, finally making eye contact with taeyong as his fingers settle just above the knot of his towel.

“i like how i look on you.”

taeyong’s face is carefully blank when ten’s hands edge lower, palms resting on the starchy cloth around his hips. he makes no move to escape when ten uses taeyong’s hips as leverage to push their faces close together, lips an inch or so apart.

“should i do you now?” asks taeyong.

ten smirks. “isn’t it usually the other way around?”

and just like ten expected, taeyong averts his eyes in embarrassment. “stop. i meant your color.”

“you have one for me?”

“yeah. yellow,” taeyong says, and then his eyes flit back to meet ten’s, a small smile on his lips. “like laying out in the sun all day.”

ten wants to ask for an explanation, but more than that he’s filled with an inexplicable emotion, an urgency to kiss the smile off taeyong’s face until he brings back to life the deep pink flush that’s faded from his cheeks.

“the sun, huh?” ten traces the still-red marks on taeyong’s chest with his index finger, never breaking eye contact even when his hands settle again at the hem of taeyong’s towel. “should i warm you up then?” 

taeyong’s body speaks for him. he pulls ten’s hands over to the knot of his towel, guiding his fingers until it unfurls onto the bedspread beneath.

“yes please,” taeyong breathes, finally leaning up to meet his lips, so ten does just that.

**Author's Note:**

> idk why this ended up being so horny. blaming quarantine. also i love modern art :^)


End file.
